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Joined: Apr 2002
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FPE here in the US was Federal Pacific Electric/Federal Pacific Electrical with FPE as their company logo. As I mentioned earlier, they had a plant here in Newark, NJ back in the day.

Their products ranged from the ‘famous’ Stab-Loc’ CBs, panels, switchgear, fuseable disconnect switches, to transformers (dry type is all I seen) and probably a lot of other items. The ‘Stab-Loc’ logo was also on their line of bolt-on CBs, as well as the ‘lug-lug’ breakers. Their demise was related to the ‘Stab-Loc’ failure to trip, and loss of UL listing. There are still many FPE panels around, they are a favorite item for the Home Inspectors (not AHJs) to write up as “dangerous”, ‘Must be replaced” etc.



John
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Check out this thread at another forum, not Stab-Lok, but may of interest. https://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/threads/federal-electric.122338/

HotLine1 #219143 02/12/18 03:43 PM
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Originally Posted by HotLine1

Their products ranged from the ‘famous’ Stab-Loc’ CBs, panels, switchgear, fuseable disconnect switches, to transformers (dry type is all I seen) and probably a lot of other items. The ‘Stab-Loc’ logo was also on their line of bolt-on CBs, as well as the ‘lug-lug’ breakers. Their demise was related to the ‘Stab-Loc’ failure to trip, and loss of UL listing. There are still many FPE panels around, they are a favorite item for the Home Inspectors (not AHJs) to write up as “dangerous”, ‘Must be replaced” etc.



Now that makes sense, thanks for the info! The lug - lug MCBs you mention were probably very similar to the DIN rail types in the picture above except for the different mounting.

I suppose most countries had their share of non-trip MCBs. Austria definitely had, I once witnessed a 1961 Schrack MCB repeatedly refusing to trip on a dead short. Luckily an upstream fuse did blow and prevented any serious danger. BTW; I never managed to figure out the exact cause of the short. It occurred in a floor lamp with a US 3-way ES26 socket with a regular (single-filament) ES27 bulb in it, a configuration that had worked fine for several years. After trying and failing to find the fault we disposed of the lamp, all the better considering the exposed screw thread of an ES27 bulb in an ES26 holder combined with non-polarised plugs.

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Found this in a discussion of FPE, UK in origin.

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=431336

Joined: Dec 2001
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Ewwwww, the magnetic trip is a lot more than questionnable! Thanks for the link!

The German-made ones might be different though since they were clearly built to VDE specifications - or at least labelled, this being FPE.

andey #220346 10/14/19 10:14 AM
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Originally Posted by andey
Ah, there they are! I live in a house in Germany that had a 1963 labeled FPE meter / fuse panel. It hat DIN Rails and matching bakelite housings with 1980s BBC (now ABB) breakers installed, but I always thought it must have come with FPE din rail breakers. Now I know how they must have looked, thanks Texas_Ranger


Quoting my own message. I knew houses in my German neighbourhood had FPE breaker panels from the 60s. Today I spied this panel through an open door in a neighbour house that is being remodeled. I hope they're throwing the old stuff out!

https://www.electrical-contractor.n...220345/fpe-breaker-panel-in-germany.html


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Fisher

Price

Electric

For anyone who does not know,Fisher Price is a toy manufacturer & I have no clue as to their international exposure.

NORCAL #220359 10/29/19 06:12 AM
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Originally Posted by NORCAL
Fisher

Price

Electric

For anyone who does not know,Fisher Price is a toy manufacturer & I have no clue as to their international exposure.


Fisher Price is definitely well-known throughout Europe! I guess almost everyone who's been anywhere near an average toddler in the last 50 years has seen some Fisher Price toys.

I still wonder if the German FPE equipment was any good! The MCBs were obviously manufactured to German specs so they weren't identical to their US counterparts. Considering their age they should be replaced anyway though.

Joined: Aug 2008
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Neighbour got her panel redone and I got the breakers. Photos here. Looks like they have the bimetal thermal trip and also an instant magnetic trip. You can also see they did not have a din rail mount as I had guessed. They had a thin stripe of sheet metal that went into a slot at the bottom of the mounting plate, and then were fixed with a screw on the top side.

@Texas Ranger, send me a message with your address, if you want a few of them.

https://www.electrical-contractor.n...alleries/220378/fpe-in-germany-pt-2.html

Last edited by andey; 12/09/19 02:52 PM.
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Cool, thanks for the pictures!
The DIN rail was still a very new thing when these were manufactured I think, if it had been invented at all, so I'd have been surprised if they did have a DIN-rail mount!

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